Sir John Dering by Jeffery Farnol

Despite her wounds, the _True Believer_ made a fair crossing, and the day was still young when Sir John, stumbling up from the dark and noisome hole Mr. Nye called his "state-room," drank deep of the sweet morning air and hasted to the rail, there to lean and gaze ecstatic upon the Sussex shore. A coast of fair, green slopes, of snowy cliffs, just now all pink and gold in the early sunshine, with, above and beyond, the blue swell of the Downs. A coast that has known much of storm and battle since Roman armour flashed beneath the resistless eagles, and William the Norman landed on Pevensey Level to march his eager mercenaries against the war-worn ranks of Saxon Harold.

And yet it is a gentle coast of white and green and purple distances, its every rock and headland seeming to beckon the weary, home-returning traveller, speaking to him of remembered hamlets nestling amid the green; of familiar roads, tree-shaded, a-wind between flowery banks and hedgerows; of quiet villages and sleepy, ancient towns backed by the swelling grandeur of the silent, mysterious Downs.